This year’s 9 day Double Dragon Alliance Camp recently came to a close on Sunday 14 th October with a martial arts exhibition, featuring some of Shanghai’s top masters demonstrating their art and skill at the Shanghai Earthquake Centre.
This year’s camp coincided with the 2007 Special Olympics held in China for the first time and the city was packed with competitors and visitors from around the world, helping to create a very dynamic and expectant atmosphere in this bustling city of dreams.
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Although this year, numbers of participants at camp were lower than last time (partly due to the unavailability and price of air tickets), the attendees made up for this with bags of enthusiasm and energy, and the smaller group made for a very “close family” feeling.
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Three of the group were returnees from last year’s camp, David Thorpe – who helped Rose Oliver organize the Taiji seminar in Manchester this year where Master Ren Gang taught Yang Style Taiji and Push Hands; Colin Jefferson (returning from last year’s camp) and Jon Kilgarriff, both students of David and attendants at the Manchester seminars; plus Sheila Gent, returning from last year and who also attended the Taiji seminars organized in London earlier this year by Rose Oliver.
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The 2007 camp was concentrated in Shanghai, with sightseeing in and around Shanghai itself as well as Suzhou, ‘China’s Venice’.
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This year we were also very lucky to join in a Wu Style Taiji ‘Performance and Exhibition meeting’ in People’s Park, which was attended by a very large group of some of the best Wu stylists in Shanghai, including Master Liu Ji Fa and Master Ma Yue Liang’s son, Ma Jiang Ling .
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The DDA participants got the chance to watch some great performers plus “try out” the local push hands scene with a host of martial artists who came to watch the demonstrations.
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It was a traditionally typical ‘play day’, where practitioners gather to play and try out their skills in a friendly and informal way, without the worry of stepping on other martial artists territory or being seen as ‘challenging’ other teachers.
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It was a great day and made a wonderful start to the camp.
At this year’s camp, training centred mainly on continuing the Taiji practice with Master Ren Gang, as well as continuing lessons with last year’s teachers Masters Lu Zhi Liang, Wang Ming Bo, Liu Hong Cai, Liu Ji Fa and Wu Mao Gui.
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Fortunately due to the mostly clement and pleasant weather, a lot of training could also take place outside in the local parks and added to the traditional atmosphere of training in China.
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Morning sessions were again conducted by Masters Lu Zhi Liang, Wang Ming Bo, Liu Ji Fa and Liu Hong Cai and focused on Qigong, as well as some basic training exercises and 2 person training.
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Master Liu Ji Fa’s morning session was also enthusiastically joined by several local residents who loved the Qigong movements.
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The camp participants also continued to learn the basic ‘ward off, roll back, press, push’ push hands pattern, together with some of Wu style’s 13 push hands patterns.
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Master Liu also taught an evening session, which was also attended by some martial arts students based in Shanghai (Marie-Jose Walhof and Sjef Roymans) and which reviewed the morning session and introduced some Dan Tian training exercises to promote power and liveliness in the Dan Tian.
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Master Liu Hong Cai’s morning session worked on a lot of Chen style basic foundation exercises to help align and connect, as well as open and relax the joints of the body.
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The exercises worked on the upper body, namely the wrist, elbow and shoulder joints, in addition to the hips and legs. The exercises definitely ‘woke up’ the lower body and left you in no doubt where your legs were!
We all benefited a great deal from the exercises, which were a tremendous help in integrating the upper and lower body and activating the root and legs.
It really demonstrated the high level of skill Master Liu and his teachers had and how much effort and hard work the masters of old must have put into their practice; it was a wonderful inspiration albeit hard to walk up the stairs afterwards!
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Master Wu Mao Gui of the Tong Bei system, taught 2 evening sessions, working on Tong Bei basic foundation exercises, body connecting and aligning exercises, push hands and some sparring techniques.
Assisted by his 2 German students, Nicola and Stefan Schmidt, Master Wu taught the enthusiastic group a series of Tong Bei combination strikes, as well as letting everyone ‘try them out’ on him so that they could get a real feel for the way the body should work.
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Master Wu is a very generous teacher, and one of the reasons his students make such great progress is his willingness to let them try the techniques on him and give them detailed feedback and corrections.
He also taught them Tong Bei’s penetrating striking power and let us all have a “taste” of his power, which I have to say left no question that we wouldn’t want to eat a whole “plate”!
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His power also surprised some of the other martial arts teachers, like Master Ren Gang, who came especially to watch Master Wu’s session, which is a rarity in Chinese martial arts circles; very few martial artists would allow other teachers to observe their classes, and is a testament not just to Master Wu’s generosity, but his martial art’s level too.
Rose Oliver, who acted as translator for the whole 9 day event, plans to invite Master Wu to the UK next April and May to teach some seminars around Britain, so hopefully others will also get a chance to sample one of Shanghai’s best martial artist’s skills and expertise.
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Master Ren Gang, who this April and May came to the UK to teach seminars in Devon, London and Manchester, taught daily classes in Yang style Taiji theory, push hands and Taiji applications, including Chin Na (locking techniques).
All of the participants had trained with Master Ren before, both at last year’s camp and in Britain and continued from the first section of the form to training in the second section, reviewing many of the applications and real meanings within the Taiji form that are so often lost in many of the “modern” versions of the Yang style forms, practiced both in China and the West.
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For many practitioners learning more ‘simplified’ versions, a lot of the Taiji movements are rather vague and the true purpose of some of the moves have become obscured.
Master Ren also taught the “5 step theory to correct Taiji practice”, covering how to correctly use the body, energy, will or intention, spirit and potential energy and momentum.
Master Ren also worked on correcting the participants’ forms so that they could fully understand each individual movement and start to put the theories into their own form practice.
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Master Lu Zhi Liang also worked on the brush knee sequence in the Taiji form, concentrating on the principle of flowing through the movements and Yin/Yang changes working in harmony, and with Master Wang Ming Bo took the participants through some of the early morning basic foundation training exercises.
All the information from the teachers this year had the same theme running through it; that is using the body correctly and not using physical strength or the physical structure, utilizing the energy, connecting and unifying the whole body’s power and energy and really investing in loss – not resisting the opponent, neither collapsing and ‘running away’ from him, but being truly at one with yourself, the environment and the opponent.
Master Dong Bin, who also taught 2 sessions at the camp, summed up the main theme of Taiji very succinctly – “No me!” If one thinks of the self, one either becomes hard and resistant or too soft and collapsing in an effort to get away from an opponent’s power.
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The informal sessions with Master Dong and all his students and kung fu brothers were a really fun time and gave everyone a chance to play together and test their skills safely with other members of Master Dong’s group, in addition to getting hands on advice from one of Taiji’s “old masters”. At 87 years of age, with a wealth of knowledge and experience in traditional martial arts, Master Dong is a real Chinese treasure, and like many of his generation, the chance for foreign students to have access to such great fountains of knowledge are fast disappearing.
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This year during our sightseeing trip to Suzhou, we were also treated to a wonderful bonus of a special, traditional Chinese festival at Tiger Hill Pagoda and Temple.
The unique event is a celebration of one of the ancient Emperors of old China (when it was still divided into separate kingdoms) and his court and was attended by a variety of performers; from minority dancing groups performing their traditional dances, to several dragon dances, and a particularly vigorous and energetic lion dance, which was a stunning display of acrobatic skill by 2 young boys; plus some more modern displays of ‘circus acrobatics’ and gymnastic skills, and a performance of traditional “street scenes” from past times.
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The fantastic atmosphere at the 2000 year old Tiger Hill Park and the open-air performances were a real gift and being a part of the mainly native crown of on-lookers, with its ‘oohs and aahs’ and the obviously, genuine enjoyment of the audience, created a really extra special day out and was something that couldn’t have been ‘planned’ better.
The day in Suzhou ended in a climb to the top of “Northern Temple” Pagoda, with its glorious views over the whole of Suzhou and its environs.
The camp itself came to a close with the masters’ exhibition on the 14 th October and a farewell banquet for around 200 guests and participants.
The performers that day included many of the teachers from the camp and with around 30 masters demonstrating, it was a fun and exciting end to the 9 day event.
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Some of the highlights were the lively push hands demonstrations between the two identical twins and their 2 person “synchronized” sword form; the performances of Yang style Taiji from the camp participants and the 24 Step Taiji form by Master Wang Ming Bo leading Sheila Gent, Marie Jose Walhorf and her husband Sjef Roymans who also attended the camp (although they were all rather nervous, they were given a very welcoming reception by the audience and actually enjoyed the experience to boot!); Master Wu Mao Gui and his western students performing a section of Tong Bei and also the “fast” version of Master Wu’s Tong Bei form; the Wu style fast form by one of Master Wang Hao Da’s students Master Shen Chao; the three generations of Ba Gua performers from the 82 year old Master Chen Shao Lian, to the ‘middle aged’ Master Chen An Tian, both students of the Wang Zhuang Fei lineage and by the ‘younger’ generation of 14 year old Master Sun Ming and a performance of Hsing-Yi by Master Zhu Yu Cheng, Master Zhu Gui Ting’s grandson.
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One of the high points of the show was also the informal fun section of volunteer push hands participants, including the 2 metre tall Dutch gentleman who wanted to try out the masters, to Rose Oliver’s “flight through the air” on the receiving end of Master Wu Mao Gui’s “Fa Jing”, much to the delight of the audience and to Rose herself, who said she now knew how birds felt and was delighted by the feeling of being emptied out and just sent flying without any effort; a feeling hard to describe, but one rather like a kid flying off a roundabout, it feels wonderful, doesn’t hurt and you just want to try it again!
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The whole event was a great chance for everyone to relax and meet new friends and after the end of the exhibition and group photos, many of the participants immediately started pushing hands and just exchanging ideas and showing push hands techniques in a very friendly and informal manner.
Rose Oliver said such was the success and genuine enjoyment of the demonstration event, that they plan to regularly host a get together and informal gathering for Shanghai martial artists to train and play together without the usual politics attached to meeting people in the parks to play.
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The exhibition ended with a banquet for around 120 guests and was a really wonderful end to a brilliant camp.
The whole 9 day event finally ended with a quiet farewell meal for the camp guests with Master Wang Ming Bo and Rose Oliver and presentations of specially designed Double Dragon Alliance Taiji suits and certificates for each of the participants.
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Next year’s 2008 camp is planned to take place from November 15 th – 23 rd inclusive, with many of this year’s teachers again taking classes in Taiji, Tong Bei and Push hands/sparring, with additional classes in Hsing Yi and Ba Gua.
Details will be posted shortly and we hope that we will be able to welcome you to Shanghai to join in one of the most dynamic martial arts circles in the world and enjoy the wonderful hospitality and friendship of the people of Shanghai.